


the monster in you

by aghamora



Series: Flaurel Ficlets [37]
Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode: s02e12 It's a Trap, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 20:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6129796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Frank's confession, Frank and Laurel get a shot at a second chance, and a new beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the monster in you

**Author's Note:**

> Basically what I want to happen in the next episode, because 2x12 hurt my heart for many reasons and I needed to write this to make myself feel better. Enjoy!

She comes back to him at 3:56 AM on a Thursday night.

For a moment, as his door swings open to reveal her standing there, clutching her bag, trembling and teary-eyed, all Frank can do is stare. For a moment, he’s certain he must be dreaming, that he’s seeing things, delirious from exhaustion – and so he blinks, expecting her to disappear like a mirage. He hasn’t slept in days, not since telling her. He must be going crazy, seeing things.

Laurel, however, doesn’t budge. She just looks back, raising her chin and meeting his eyes. Even in the dim light Frank can see her lower lip trembling, notices the way her breathing is fast and shallow. She looks like a dam of a girl, all stopped up and ready to burst, spilling over her sides.

“Laurel,” he says her name lowly, and it’s like Holy Communion on his tongue, as sweet as anything he’s ever tasted in his life.

A thousand voicemails and text messages come back to him, all at once:  _Pick up. Please. Fuck, Laurel… I need to talk to you. Let me explain. I love you. I love you. I love you,_ and he gulps, his mouth dry, because she’s here, she’s come back to him, and that’s something he’d been growing increasingly sure would never happen. “Hey.”

Laurel doesn’t answer. Wordlessly, she stalks inside past him, and he follows, closing the door and turning to look at her. He remembers, in the back of his mind, the first time she’d come to him like this: all those months ago in the dead of night, reeking of smoke, distraught, for such different reasons than she is now. He’s so overcome with emotion right then that he wants to break down and cry at the sight of her, but he doesn’t. He only stands where he is, feet firm on the ground, and waits for her to say something first.

Finally, in a tiny, shaky voice, she does.  

“I didn’t…” she drifts off, gulping. “I shouldn’t… be here. But I-“ She pauses, and sucks in a breath. “I didn’t know where else to go, a-and with Philip out there, I just…”

“It’s okay,” he soothes. “You’re safe here, if you wanna stay.”

Laurel stays silent for a moment, contemplating that and peering over at him with eyes that look like two huge, shimmering puddles. After a minute, she exhales slowly and lets herself relax, her stance softening somewhat.

“I got your messages,” she murmurs. “Did you… mean that?”

_I love you._  God yes, he did. He  _does_ , so much that, with every beat of his heart, he feels the ache inside; this overwhelming ache to touch her, hold her. He’d sent the message three times, all in a row. All three times, he’d meant it with every bone in his body.

So he nods. “Yeah.”

_You said you would do anything for me,_  she’d said once, a hundred years ago, in another life.  _Did you mean it?_

_Yeah_ , he’d answered then, without a second thought, and that holds true still – now more than ever.

“Laurel…” Frank starts, unsure, taking a step towards her. “Let me explain, about-”

“Don’t.” He halts in his tracks, and Laurel pauses for a moment, before walking the rest of the way over to him and meeting his eyes. “Don’t explain. I don’t wanna know why.”

He furrows his brow. “But-”

“Were there others?” she asks without pretense, and her voice is sharp enough to cut. “Others you-”

“ _No_ ,” he asserts.

Again, Laurel pauses, doubting him – rightfully so, but to know how little she trusts him now stings. Then: 

“Are you lying?”

He raises his voice, desperate for her to believe him. “ _No_.”

“Okay.” She inhales slowly, rubbing her lips together and swiping hurriedly at her cheeks again, as if not wanting him to see the tears. “Okay.”

Silence passes over them, heavy as a storm cloud. Laurel fidgets, shifting her weight from leg to leg like she’s not sure what to do, now. Frank has to fight the urge to reach out to her, but he doesn’t, knowing she’ll likely recoil from his touch, and fuck, he doesn’t know if he could take that. The idea of Laurel being scared of him… She has every reason to, he knows, but-

“I-I can’t stop thinking about it. Lila,” she pipes up suddenly, drawing him from his reverie. Her composure crumbles again, and a look of slight hysteria creeps into her eyes. “I can’t sleep. I keep dreaming about it. You… killing her, and-”

“Lau-”

“I can’t look at you the same, anymore.” Her voice breaks, and she shakes her head, lowering her eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I just – I just wanna stop  _thinking_.”

Frank pauses for a moment, then sighs, knowing that there’s not much point talking this over tonight, when they’re both sleep deprived and half-mad. “Get some sleep, okay? Take the bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Laurel, however, just shakes her head, and moves closer to him, so close that, for a moment, he isn’t sure what she intends to do. She looks awful up close: dark bags underneath bloodshot eyes, like she’s been crying for hours – because of him. Jesus, all because of  _him_. He’s destroyed her like this, made her this hollow empty creature he barely recognizes, and a lump forms in his throat before he can help it, his stomach roiling with guilt.

“I just wanna stop thinking,” she breathes, and an odd sort of tranquility settles over her as she presses herself against him, in a way that is definitely  _not_  just in search of comfort. “I need to stop thinking, Frank.”

He opens his mouth to answer her, bewildered, but before he can she has closed the gap between them, their lips colliding clumsily, in an aggressive, frantic way that is nothing like how Laurel usually kisses him. There’s such need in her kiss, such utter desperation, that it makes him pull back.

“Hey,” he undertones, trying to calm her down. “What’re you doin’?”

“Make me forget,” she urges. The tears on her cheeks haven’t even dried, but there’s a steely determination in her eyes that wasn’t there before, to get what she’s come for: a painkiller. A distraction. “ _Please_.”

She moves in again, but Frank backs off. “Hey, hey. No. You’re upset.”

“Don’t you get it?” she hisses. “It’s – it’s the only way I can turn my mind off, and… if I keep thinking about Lila, imagining it, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“I-”

Not about to back down, Laurel interrupts him again with another needy kiss, coiling her arms around him frantically, as if expecting him to try to push her off. He can taste the salt of her tears trickling into their kiss, and the softness of her lips, the blessedly familiar feeling of her hair in his hands when he reaches up to touch it, all of that, things he’d been so sure he would never have again… He’s lost before he can help himself, because this is Laurel, and she’s here with him. She’s  _here_. Real. In his arms again, and he can’t make himself pull away this time, not when Laurel is begging and kissing him so urgently, like she’ll die without him.

He would, too. Die without her. He knows that now.

In a flurry of sloppy, messy kisses and stumbling footsteps, they make it into the bedroom, pitch black and illuminated only by moonlight that pours in through the window and gathers in a puddle on the bed. His head is pounding from the lack of sleep, his vision fuzzy. Everything – the press of Laurel’s breasts, the soft, muffled sounds she makes against his mouth, her roaming hands – feels surreal, and intoxicating. After he’d been so sure he had lost her for good, he doesn’t think he can ever let her go again.

Laurel tugs his shirt over his head, and his hands go for her blouse, unbuttoning it and pulling her down onto the bed, so that she’s straddling his lap. His hands hold her to him like a drowning man clinging to his only lifeline, with so much need. He’s not one to  _need_ people; over the years he’d made a habit of keeping people at a distance, pushing them away whenever they got too close, and sure as hell never getting close enough to need them. He’d gotten used to it. It had never bothered him – until he’d met Laurel, so different from all the others, who had pried her way into his past, his sinister secrets, wanting to know every one of them.

And that’s when he realizes, suddenly, that he can’t do this. If it were any other girl, it would be different – but not Laurel. She doesn’t want this, not really. If he does this now it will only break them even worse than they already have been, and so with that in mind Frank makes himself tear his lips away from hers, hands trembling with emotion.

“No,” he pants. “Stop, Laurel. You don’t want this.”

Not paying any attention, Laurel just goes in for another kiss. “Yes, I do. Now just… just come on-”

“No,” Frank makes himself say again, more firmly this time.

He reaches out to push her back slightly, keep her from kissing him again, and when he does, one of his hands brushes the side of her throat. It’s entirely unintentional on his part – but the instant he does, Laurel freezes, going rigid atop him, stiff as a statue. He hears her suck in a sharp breath. Immediately she pulls back, and he watches as the illusion in her eyes shatters, and it all comes flooding back to her, when before she’d been trying so hard to block it all out and switch off her brain. Her face crumples, and she shakes her head, a hoarse sob escaping her. In his foggy state of mind, Frank almost doesn’t realize why the touch has upset her so much, but then, it hits him.

Lila.

The way he’d wrapped that same hand around her throat, choked her to death. He knows Laurel is thinking of that. He doesn’t know how she’ll ever be able to see him again and  _not_ think of that. What he’s done has broken them, broken her – maybe for good – and he knows that now, as sure as he knows he’s breathing. And  _fuck_  if it doesn’t make him want to die, too.

“Laurel.” His voice cracks pathetically, and he feels his own eyes fill with tears. “Laurel, I…”

Laurel looks like she wants to answer, tries to think of something to say – but instead all that comes out when she opens her mouth is another sob, her shoulders quaking with the force of it. Everything she’d been holding in before for all these days, since the night he’d told her, comes pouring out at once. The dam breaks.  _She_  breaks.

“You… you killed her,” Laurel blurts out, voice thick with tears. “ _God_.”

He thinks about trying to explain again, but stops himself. She doesn’t want an explanation; it’s not as if an explanation can change what he’s done, and they both know that perfectly well. Instead he just reaches out and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, trying to get her to look him in the eyes.

But she doesn’t. Instead, in short, panicked, borderline nonsensical bursts, she continues. 

“It’s… i-it’s never gonna be okay again. Everything’s a mess. My whole life, it’s a mess… And Lila, and Sam – after everything we’ve done, and now  _you_. I thought… that I’d always have you, and now it’s _this_ , it’s all so…”

His own tears spill over too, right then. His heart seizes up inside him almost painfully, and he gulps, placing both his hands on her cheeks, not knowing what to say but just knowing that he has to touch her, that he has to be with her, that he can’t lose her.

“I didn’t even want to come here,” Laurel hiccups, making her way off of his lap and settling down onto her knees on the bed, shying away from his touch. “I can’t even  _look_  at you. But… I wanted to come back. I needed to, and I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Laurel.” His voice scrapes his throat roughly. He reaches out, urging her to turn back towards him. “Please…”

Please what? He doesn’t even know what he’s asking.  _Please understand. Please don’t leave. Please forgive me._

“And I kissed Wes,” she blurts out. Finally, Laurel looks at him, and lets him inch closer, until he has placed both his hands on her cheeks once more. “I didn’t even really want to. I just… needed someone, after what you said, and it couldn’t be you – but I still need you Frank, I-I need you, and I can’t make myself stop.”

He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t even think he can speak. Instead Frank just reaches out and draws her into him, encircling her with his arms as if she’ll slip away at any second. He holds her so tight that he thinks for a second he might break her, and buries his face into her hair, and clings to her like his life depends on it. He’s crying too, now; audible sobs that squeeze his chest, make it ache. He’s too overwhelmed by emotion – guilt, gratitude that she’s come back, so much fucking self-loathing for what he’s done – to do anything but hold her. He doesn’t care about Wes, about anything she’s done, anywhere she’s been. She deserves a man a million times better than him, and he’s sure of that now, and even so, she’s come back to him. He doesn’t know why.

He wants her to run. He wants her to leave him, find someone better, a man who’ll never hurt her like this, who’ll make her the happiest she can be – and yet at the same time just the fucking  _thought_  of that kills him, because he wants that for her so, so badly, but he’s too selfish to let her go.

“I’m sorry,” he chokes out against her shoulder, not knowing exactly, what, he’s apologizing for. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

Laurel squeezes him tighter, her body trembling violently. Her fingernails dig in the back of his neck as she holds on. She doesn’t answer, and so he gulps, steadying his voice as best he can.

“I never wanted to hurt you, okay? Christ, I love you, Laurel. So much. And I… I need you.” The words only seem to make her cry harder. Frank lets out a breath, kissing the side of her head. “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t cry. He isn’t the type to show emotion; it’s not in his genetic makeup. He hasn’t cried, really cried, in front of another person in years; a decade, probably, or maybe even since he was a kid. But he cries right then, cries until he can’t cry any more; huge, gut-wrenching sobs, and holds Laurel while he does,  _clings_  to her. She does the same, sobbing, muttering things he can’t quite make out about her father and him and how they’re all terrible people who belong in hell. It’s right then that he knows for sure just how broken they are. How  _fucked up_ everything has become, so tangled and twisted, possibly past the point of repair. He hadn’t wanted it to be like this, ever. It had all seemed so simple before. He wants to ask himself how it had all come to this, but he doesn’t have to; he already knows the answer.

Because of him.

At least half an hour passes before either one of them speaks, again. By then their tears have dried, and their sobs quieted to mere hiccups, and finally, Laurel pulls back to look at him. Her eyes are bleary, unfocused, surrounded by broken capillaries from crying. Her shoulders seem to sink underneath the weight of her own exhaustion. Much to his surprise, however, instead of moving away, she reaches up and places a hand on his cheek, steadying his face to look directly into his eyes. Suddenly she is the picture of total serenity, almost to the point of looking detached, her eyes narrowed as if in thought.

“I’m trying to do it. See the monster in you,” she murmurs, her voice hoarse. “But I can’t. And I… I don’t know why.”

His head heavy and his body weak, Frank just leans in and presses the most tender kiss he can muster to her lips, in silent reply. Almost his whole body is shaking, quivering with emotion. He’s never felt so many things at once, never knew it was possible  _to_  feel so many things at once.

He lays down with her, not long after. Frank wraps Laurel in his arms and holds her, nuzzling her neck, washed in the tide of her breathing, lost in the warmth of her body, and so infinitely fucking thankful that she’s here with him, again. He tells her he loves her until his voice is raspy, and soothes her when the tears return, until she cries herself to sleep. Until they’ve  _both_  cried themselves to sleep.

And he holds her: holds her like she’ll be torn from him at any moment; holds her, because there’s nothing more words can say, tonight.

 

–

 

In the morning, Frank wakes up to a pounding head, damp cheeks, and empty, rumpled sheets beside him.

Groggy from crying, he sits up and rubs his sore eyes, squinting at the sudden deluge of sunlight. His heart sinks, however, when he realizes that Laurel isn’t there next to him, and sinks even further when the events of the previous night come flooding back to him, hitting him like a punch in the stomach.

Part of him had been expecting this, in all honesty. He’d known he would wake up alone after last night, without her, and she would be long gone. He supposes he’ll have to get used to that, from now on.

But then Frank rolls over onto his side, and opens his eyes all the way – and suddenly, there is Laurel.

She’s standing across the room, wrapped in his huge blue bathrobe and staring out the window with distant eyes. Her hair is mussed, eyes swollen and red from crying. She’s standing in the sunlight, and it illuminates her from the side in just the right way to make her shimmer with a faint golden outline, like an angel on earth. For a moment, once more, as he marvels at the sight of her, Frank wonders if he’s dreaming.

“Hey,” he says, making her head snap toward him in surprise.  

Laurel doesn’t smile, or greet him, or even react to his presence. Frank sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed, approaching her cautiously, careful not to get too close too quickly and spook her. This thing between them, this love – it’s fragile, now. He’s already broken her trust; with one more wrong move, he’ll break her completely, and he’d sooner die than do that. He can take things slow. However slow she needs, however much time… He’ll give it to her. He’d give  _anything_  to her.

“Hey,” Laurel finally croaks, and nestles herself into her bathrobe as if trying to retreat inside it.

Frank comes to a stop before her, waiting for her to speak again before he does. Laurel rubs her lips together and sighs, and for a while, all she does is look at him, like she’s contemplating something, the gears in her mind turning.

Then, at last, she takes a deep breath, looks him in the eyes, and begins.

“I want you to explain,” she tells him, her voice firm, chain raised. “About Lila. I want to know everything.”

He doesn’t hesitate to nod. “’Course. Everything.”

Laurel pauses, then moves closer, dead-serious. “And I need you to promise me… that you’ll never lie to me again. About anything.”

Another nod. “Yeah, of c-”

“Because if you do,” she cuts him off, sharply. “If you  _ever_  do, Frank, I will leave, and you will never see me again. Do you understand?”

A second chance. She’s offering him a second chance. The realization hits him so hard that it sends his head reeling, because this is more than he ever could’ve hoped for, after what he’s done. More than he deserves, surely.  _She’s_  more than he deserves, and he’s never been more aware of it than he is right now as she stands before him, offering him absolution; not in the eyes of God, but in  _her_  eyes, the only ones that truly matter.

“Yeah,” is all he says. “I do. I promise.”

He steps closer, until his chest is brushing hers and he can feel her breath on his cheek. Laurel tries to summon up something like a smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and he can see clearly that she doesn’t mean it. She seems almost to sag underneath the weight of the world on her shoulders, more exhausted and beaten down than he’s ever seen her. He wants to kiss her, briefly, but doesn’t dare. 

She doesn’t trust him anymore – he knows that – but God help him, he’ll build that trust back, brick by brick, even if it takes years. Even if it goddamn near kills him.

“It’s so hard,” Laurel remarks, sighing. Her blue eyes are dim, sad. “Everything is such a mess. And I’m tired. I’m just… so tired.”

Tired of the web of lies, the murder, the blood, the deceit. He knows perfectly well what she means, and although this revelation has changed things forever, and they may never be like they were before… Suddenly, out of nowhere, Frank feels unexpectedly free, the invisible shackle on his ankle broken. He’ll never have to lie to her again, shut her out, keep her in the shadows. He’ll never have to hold back. She can know him, finally, every inch of his soul and his secrets, like he’d wanted, and he can love her, unconditionally - and maybe one day, if he’s lucky, she can find it in herself to love him unconditionally in return.

Frank doesn't know who could love a monster like him. He has no fucking clue, but even just to have a chance with Laurel again - a _real_ chance - is more than enough for him. 

“I know,” Frank tells her. “Me too.”

They’re both tired, drained of their spirit to the point of dropping. They’ve been through hell, so much more than any two people should know, and it’s more than likely that they aren’t done, yet.

But this is their new beginning, Frank thinks, as his lips meet her forehead and he takes her into his arms. This is their second chance, now, and he sure as hell isn’t about to waste it.


End file.
